Living the life: a food history day
Today has been all about food history.
This morning a friend and I made cherry liqueur following my ancestral recipe. I was going to give you the recipe, but I started by explaining it to my friend. I told her “You put the fruit in the jar, you add the sugar, you add the brandy and you leave it in a dark place for at least a year.”
She laughed at me when we were partway through making our 9 litres. There is a vast difference between the simple way I think about the liqueur and what I actually do when I make it. There was layering and settling and getting rid of air bubbles. There was “Don’t use a metal implement!” and “You can squish the cherries down a bit of you like.”
And that was my morning.
My afternoon was more work on the Conflux banquet for next year. I have to introduce myself to the hotel staff by email, I’ve been told and next week we’ll have a meeting with a chef or catering manager or something. None of this is firm (well, the appointments are, but mostly we’re all sounding each other out right now, and seeing if we can work together).
This menu is very different in form and style and planning to the last one, just as the last one was totally different from the one before. This time round I’ve shifted a continent and 110 years.
My big breakthrough today regarded the fish course. If I had set the dinner two years earlier, it would have been non-negotiable, but I found a comment in a nicely authoritative book (by one of Fanny Farmer’s students) explaining that the fish and entrée courses were often dispensed with entirely. So I shall indeed dispense with them entirely. This solves the issue of vegetarian food, to large degree, and it means I can know exactly how the menu fits together in my mind, since I shall be able to taste it all, I think.
I also found a bunch of material on etiquette and table set-up today and I think I have enough recipes.
There are still lots and lots and lots of recipes to test, if anyone wants to. I like these recipes. Each period and place has its own character. The character of this New York dinner is going to be one of great charm, I suspect.
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:19 pm
The Cherry Liqueur sounds devine. We just made a batch of Limoncello this morning but a bottle of cherry liqueur in the cupboard sounds good to me.
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:59 am
You can get the cherries at EPIC - and the liqueur is a *lot* easier to make than Limoncello and (if you can wait ten years) becomes entirely divine. I’ve had a friend hanging out for three years for me to say “yes, these cherries will work” because she tasted the ten year old variety and was determined to have some. In fact, this is theh first season in four or five years that the cherries have been suitable and not cost a fortune.